Search Results for: voting

In 2013, a landmark Supreme Court decision altered a significant segment of the VRA. Shelby County v. Holder determined that Section 4b of the VRA – the coverage formula that determines how preclearance of voting districts is handled – was unconstitutional. The argument for the decision was that Section 4b’s formula was part of a … Continue reading Legacy of the Voting Rights Act – New Challenges and Possibilities

Nationwide debates regarding the Voting Rights Act returned in 1992, as the linguistic requirements drew closer to expiration. The first piece of legislation introduced to address the expiration was the Voting Rights Language Assistance Act of 1992. Developed by Representative José E. Serrano (D-NY), the legislation proposed expanding the coverage formula and the bilingual election … Continue reading Legacy of the Voting Rights Act – Bridging the Old and New Millennium

The new Congress of 1982 found itself considering the provisions of the Voting Rights Act as they neared expiration. A series of hearings were held featuring more witness testimonies; the majority of the 100+ witnesses supported extending the provisions by a decade. In contrast to the previous amendments of 1970 and 1975, the Reagan Administration … Continue reading Legacy of the Voting Rights Act – Crossroads of 1982

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 made discrimination at the ballot box unconstitutional, but it was its special provisions that helped maintain its power. From the original VRA’s passage, the special provisions were set to expire in 1970, which would effectively disarm the legislation. In spite of the massive increase in voter registration and turn … Continue reading Legacy of the Voting Rights Act – Expansions of the 1970s

Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 eliminated all forms of discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnicity, sex, or national origin, it did not fully address the ongoing troubles of voting discrimination. With the Democratic Party’s near-landslide victory in the 1964 Election, several civil rights groups lobbied Congress to pursue federal intervention in defending … Continue reading Dawn of the Voting Rights Act – Voting Rights Act of 1965

The passage of the Fifteenth Amendment granted the right to vote to all American men. As the former Confederate states returned to the Union, they rewrote their laws with the intention of disenfranchising the millions of newly-freed African-Americans in the South. Such laws included poll taxes, literacy tests, and “grandfather clauses.” In spite of the … Continue reading Road to the Voting Rights Act – A Century of Civil Rights

On August 6, 1965, the Voting Rights Act reinforced the Fifteenth Amendment by declaring that the right to vote was not to be abridged on account of racial identity. While the significance of this landmark piece of legislation is noteworthy, the pursuit for equal voting rights had been going on well before the 20th century, … Continue reading Road to the Voting Rights Act – Voting Rights from 1789 to 1869

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum is pleased to announce a new series of educational blogs! Over the next seven weeks, a collection of research writings covering the history of the Voting Rights Act will be published on our own Reagan Library Education Blog. In addition to exploring the original Voting Rights Act, this … Continue reading New Blog Series: History of the Voting Rights Act